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The soil of a man’s heart is stonier

Happy Valentine’s Day! I have the best husband in the world n’ all. It’s hard to come up with ways to make Valentine’s Day extra over-the-top special year after year, but we try to accomplish that is to make a point to do something interesting together that day. So today we decided to celebrate by visiting the Pet Cemetery!

Look close- can you see who we brought with us? We considered bringing Giles to visit with us, but he’s hanging out with his dog-cousin today. Then I wondered if we could bring our new bearded dragon, Clementine with us, but seeing as it was fairly cold out today, Clementine said she’d rather hang out under her basking lamp today.

So who better to bring along on a trip to the pet cemetery than my favorite dead pet? Yes, I brought The Lizard along to pay her respects to her fellow dead pets.

This was a pretty cool cemetery, creepy and quasi-abandoned, yet still in use in some sections. We visited the old section first, trying to find the oldest grave we could.

Brownie here is a possible contender-

Not sure what to make of this one. It’s possible that Sgt. and Mrs. Pridgen didn’t intend to give their pet a baldly racist name. I don’t think that anyone who loves their pet enough to buy an extravagant memorial stone would intentionally give their animal an offensive name. Maybe “Chink” met “cute puppy dog” in the back in the ’40s.

Old Bo was the earliest birth date we could find. The older part of the cemetery showed evidence that it may once have been located too close to the nearby creek, which eroded and caused massive shifts and sinkholes in the softy clayey soil. At some point it appears that all the older graves were moved and deposited in a pile. Also, there were a lot of graves that had sunken into the ground.

Also, how did Snitz end up here?

We allowed The Lizard to salute all the dead pets. Farewell, Prissy.

Goodnight, lost Hanson brother.

Sunny trails, Sunnea.

Rest in peace, Freckles, Doodle and Blackie…

Sweet dreams, Princess Spooky. Buenas noches querita Mimi.

This was the only verifiable non-dog/non-cat we found.

There was also the newer section, which was a little more well-maintained. The oldest graves we could find were from 1942 or so, when the cemetery opened, but we were curious as to how recent these graves could be. I think this one’s the winner, the dirt is still fresh on this one.

Wow, just three months ago.

I kinda liked the new section as well as the older part. This one was one of my favorites.

And this one made me choke up a little.

Also this one. His name-o appeared to be Bingo.

This place made me very, very happy. One might think that the heartfelt epitaphs would be sad to see, but I didn’t think of it that way. I just think that these pets were some of the luckiest dogs and cats an occasional bird that ever lived. I mean, think of all the dogs in shelters that never get adopted, all the starving and cold stray dogs and cats of the world that were never loved. These animals were clearly loved the most. Most of them lived long and presumably happy lives. It made me hope that The Lizard lived a reasonably happy Lizard-life when she was alive.

The other thought I had after we had left was that perhaps I should have buried The Lizard while we were there. Given what I know of pet semetaries, sometimes they come back.